Interlocutor is a formal word that means “one who takes part in dialogue or conversation.”

// It is crucial in our age of email scams to verify the validity of one’s online interlocutors before sharing sensitive information.

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“I remember sitting alone on the train platform, and then on the train, with no interlocutor but the poem. I read it once. I read it again. And in the blank spaces between the verses, I started to translate.” — Hannah Kauders, LitHub.com, 3 Dec. 2025

It may not necessarily be grandiloquence to use the word interlocutor in casual speech, but if your interlocutors—that is, the people with whom you are speaking—are using it, your conversation is likely a formal one. Interlocutor is one of many English words that comes from the Latin verb loqui, “to speak,” including loquacious (“talkative”), eloquent (“capable of fluent or vivid speech”), and grandiloquence (“extravagant or pompous speech”). In interlocutor, loqui was joined to inter- forming a Latin word meaning “to speak between” or “to issue an interlocutory decree.” An interlocutory decree is a judicial decision that isn’t final, or that deals with a point other than the principal subject matter of the dispute.